XY Department Of Software Projects

The initial budget of XY Department has 2.3 million pounds requested for implementation of new computer systems of XY department of the federal government, but they decided for work around and spent only 1.5 million pounds due to the shortage of funds. A project was scoped and planned within the budget, by setting goals for implementation of software and hardware across 87 sites and the projected date if completion is 30th June 2010. The steering committee of the project was established with all members of XY department CEO as the sponsors and managers belong to the individual departments as the original business case had some risks that were also included as the part of the project plan. A company called Good Programmes grabs the opportunity to implement software and hardware systems for XY Department, as it was its biggest client in the region. Good Programmers Company initially implemented new versions of the software’s after consulting with different individual project managers who accommodate requested features. Though Good Programmes developing the new versions of the software and hardware systems, all the XY department and the steering committee identified some problems with the software and decided to acquire system testers for future versions. Because of the over head of the departments the system testers were not available to identify the problems in software systems.

The new CEO has been appointed after the existing CEO and Finance manager had been removed, who are involved when the original project was scoped and commenced. CEO is been advised for 185,000 pounds more needed for completion of this project and which is not in his current budget and he is not sure what aspects have been implemented, and how much spent for which parts from the original scope of the project as he can’t see any reports or documentation available, scope changes schedule or the budget.

ASSESSMENT REPORT ON CURRENT PROJECT:

The initial budget 2.3 million pounds requested for implementation of new computer systems of XY department of the federal government, but they decided for work around and spent only 1.5 million pounds due to the shortage of funds. A project was scoped and planned within the budget, by setting goals for implementation of software and hardware across 87 sites and the projected date if completion is 30th June 2010. The steering committee of the project was established with all members of XY department CEO as the sponsors and managers belong to the individual departments as the original business case had some risks that were also included as the part of the project plan. A company called Good Programmes grabs the opportunity to implement software and hardware systems for XY Department, as it was its biggest client in the region. Good Programmers Company initially implemented new versions of the software’s after consulting with different individual project managers who accommodate requested features. Though Good Programmes developing the new versions of the software and hardware systems, all the XY department and the steering committee identified some problems with the software and decided to acquire system testers for future versions. Because of the over head of the departments the system testers were not available to identify the problems in software systems.

Thus, the original project scope and plan with specific milestones for implementation of latest software and hardware systems has not been achieved in the given time lines and the agreed budget due to the lack of anticipation of department represented managers and deficiency of project management skills.

COMPARE ASSESSMENT WITH SOUND PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLANNING PRACTICES OVER CHANGE CONTROL PLANNING:

” From the given scenario of the XY Department of the federal government has not been followed standard practices of change request management process, due to that this case will go into the never ending loop.

Therefore, the following project managing practices shall give more confident on change control and planning. A formal request of a change is called a Change Request, which should be documented.

Objective of the Change Request:

Study the adverse Impact of change & minimize it

Create & maintain a Change Management process

Prevent Unauthorized changes

Prepare Change (& Back out) Plans

Post Implementation Reviews of Changes

Maintain a record of all changes

Change types have been classified as below:

Standard changes

Emergency changes

Request for Change (RFC’s)

Change Classification & Prioritization

Change Models

Forward Schedule of Changes

Projected Service Availability

Back Out Plan

Change Advisory Board (CAB)

CAB/Emergency Committee

Standard Changes: These are the common changes that follow an accomplished procedure and do not disturb current running services.

For example: Updating the Anti-Virus software is a standard Change.

Emergency Changes: These are critical to an organization and have to be implemented on emergency bases. These are prone to failure.

Request for Change (RFC’s): These are the type of incidents, upgrades to the infrastructure or changes in the business requirements generate the need for a Request For Change (RFC).

Change Classification & Prioritization: here we can classify and plan the changes in order of their impact and urgency.

Change Models: These are

The predefined for resolving the known type and complexity.

Automated as far as possible.

Maintain scalability to create new models.

Forward Schedule of Changes (FSC):

Contains details of all approved changes and their implementation dates for an agreed period.

Detailed short term schedules and less detailed for longer term planning.

Projected Service Availability (PSA):

To determine the best time for a change implementation

Both the FSC and PSA are agreed with the customers

Back Out Plan:

It is executed when if the Change cannot happen as per plan

Usually but not necessarily the typical back out plan is to bring the systems back to original state it was in before the change started

Change Advisory Board (CAB):

CAB approves the Changes after assessing and prioritizing the RFCs.

CAB members should have sound technical knowledge and good business perspective.

CAB/Emergency Committee:

This team targets to review only urgent changes

Few members required (typically Senior Managers from concerned dept in the given Case)

Availability after shift hours

Change Management Process Flow:

Back out plan

Activities:

Record Request For Change

Review Request For Change

Assess & Evaluate Change – 7 R’s of Change

Authorize Change

Issue Change Plan (to R& D Team)

Support/Coordinate Change Implementation

Post Change Review

7 R’s of Change

Who RAISED it

What is REASON for change

What is the RETURN expected from change

What could be the RISKS involved in change

Which RESOURCES are needed to implement change

Who (which R&D Team) is RESPONSIBLE for build, test & implement change

Is there (or what) any RELATIONSHIP between this change & other changes

Change Manager

Chairperson of the CAB

Filtering and accepting RFC’s

Primary Responsibility of planning and coordinating implementation of changes

Obtaining authorization for change

Reviewing Implemented Changes

Convening emergency CAB meetings

Generating Change Management reports

May have Change coordinators to support

CAB Member

Belongs to the CAB and participates in all CAB meetings

Helps in reviewing all RFC’s to estimate impact

Participates in Scheduling Changes

If the good programmers followed the above change control planning methodologies they could have resolved all the issues in the project and deploy hardware and software components successfully in the given time frame.” [4]

STEPS RECOMMENDED FOR THE PRESENT PROJECT TO A CLOSE:

From the given case, due to the poor project management techniques the project comes into a loop, which never ends. The following recommend steps bring the project to close.

Specify Scope and objectives of the project

Specify the deliverables

Define Project planning

Internal/ External team communication

Bug/Issue/Service request tracking and progress reports

Change management

Risk management

Initially, the “Good Programmes” should know the objectives of this project. They should define requirements of the XY Department. Determining the real objectives will help them to plan the project. Also the scope of the project should be defined the amount of work which needs performing, and the total number of resources required to deploy the hardware & software installations across 87 sites. And understand who the stake holders are, and what they expect to deliver also who the testers and enlist their support. After defining the scope and objectives must have a review with stakeholders and agree with them through Project Steering Committees, and including Project Manager, Department chief, and Department managers, testers in the committees. The main drawback of the given project scenario is they have not employed a Project Manager, which is Essential for best project management practices.

Good Programmes needs to define what the project is been delivered. As this project scope is to change the outdated computer systems and implementing the latest hardware and equally software around 87 sites, they must determine what real things will be delivered and document with enough detail to enable someone else to provide them efficiently. Also, all these definitions of the deliverables must review and accept by the project steering committee.

Good Programmes must define what different ways were require for producing all deliver techniques known as all sites information and Breakdown Structures of each site. They need to find the approximate time and puts the effort that is required in every activity like implementation of Hardware & Software on each site also involve the complete project team in estimating how long all activities will take. Set milestones which indicate deadline dates during the project. Also include this into the project plan, and key stakeholders should review the project plan and agree.

All the other departments of project planning are unprofitable unless there is no communication between internal or external teams. All the team members must know their role & responsibility on the project and every team member should know the scope, objective and milestones of the project. Also it is ideal that every member should know all kind of problems hitting the project. Project Manager should share all kind of information of the project with each and every member of the project.

After the project is kick-off, on each and every stage project manager should compare the actual progress with the estimated progress in terms of work and budget. If any large variations in the scope and actual, manager and other key stake holders of the XY Department should take corrective actions on each level.

Change is common in any project environment. However it should be handled in smooth way to implement those changes. When scope OR Deliverables of the project needs changing, the project manager should identify the changes which only possible in the given time deadlines and Budget. Else if manager accepting all the changes, project will never end in the given time frame or budget. Good Programmes manager needs to consult with various managers of the departments to accommodate only possible requested new features instead of all. Also manager should be in a position to incorporate the emergency changes in immediately and new features in future releases as the budget defined only for work around and not as estimated. Not managing changes effectively is often a reason why projects fail, so Manager is the key here to manage Change Requests.

The outcome of the project is massively effect with these risks. For example if any of the resource is lack of the implementation of the Hardware or software then possibly we miss the deadlines. And there should be plan defined to overcome the risks, and identify as soon as possible. When we have more risks in the project, numbering or assigning the priorities of the risks will help. For Example, If an employee successfully implement the new Hard ware and software in one site, but the problem with one specific component of the Hardware which is know should marked as Low risk category, same way we can define medium and critical risks, Hence everyone would know the total risks in the project with their criticality, including the team members and key stake holders. In order to bring the project to a close the above 7 project management techniques the project will be closed in the given time frame and budget.

IMPROVEMENT STEPS RECOMMENDED FOR FUTURE PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES:

“The following improvements need to be implementing to the XY Departments to get the fruitful results in future projects. The entire project needs to be categorized for different phases like: –

Planning Phase

Execution Phase

Close packed phase

There are many phases in which every phase has there own review process and also the end. The important milestone event is been marked in the starting or at the end of every event with some of the series of its events where the main thing is to complete the major stage.

For a successful project we need to meet some criteria’s. They are:

Impermanent: The project has a beginning and the end where the project has a purpose.

Uniquely: Though projects are similar but the planning might have their own elements which are same or else different.

The computer system needs to implement the hardware for the project management the best technique we need to apply for activity to meet the definition of the project.

The actual market plan.

The budget needs to be corporate.

The human resources needs developing and upgrade of policies and manually.

The customer related management system is used to design and install.

There will be over hauling of response of bid system.

The annual audit needs to be prepared.

The consultant needs to be engaged and been hired.

SCOPE: The project is to be defined, the audience need to be targeted, the customer and the recipient also needs to be defined.

STAKEHOLDERS: The project is been affected by the individuals and also the organisations

GOALS: Goals need to be return clearly and in detail where the stack holders need to sign off before the execution is commenced to avoiding the confusion further.

PLANNING: Doing a project without a plan is impossible because for controlling a project we need a plan which should be executed by the people who needs to involve through out the project. The documentation needs to be proper and accurate as it is the important task for the project management. Stack holders need to be signed off in the project plan in the meeting. The stack holders need to sign the change order form in which the range is being recorded to the project. The statement need to be developed for the large projects where the objectives are being established. The customer satisfaction of the project is the primary objective which should be written and is being placed in the project. The main objective is to contain the actual deadlines is being specified within some months.

ESTIMATING TIME AND COST: To reduce the risk the time is to be reduced based on the available person who works on the project and arranges the meeting and other required things. Account chart is used for tracking the labour costs which results reducing the time to record the delay of accuracy. The Gantt chart is more useful for seeing the responsible tasks.

SCHEDULING: It considers both the task duration and the work must be done in sequence. The work is broken down into levels which need to develop and estimated sufficiently to be intended accurately. The plain should not be more details where you can manage. As we know Bar chart is equal to Giant chart where bar charts doesn’t show inter relations in the work, that don’t allow the easy way of analysis of impact of the project in which the activity slips of the software will show the holidays and the vacations of the work extended in order to time access on their impact.

ORGANISATION: The organisation needs to have their own structure during their plan and the project needs to have perfect staff. The project has a structure which is hierarchical disadvantages while running the multi discipline projects. Project management has matrix which is synonymous this deal with many kinds of disciplines. The success of this matrix needs to require a very good skills which are inter personal on all parts of the managers.

PROJECT MANAGER: A leader not only looks like a manager but he needs the skills of the people which are important. The skills of them are negotiable the flexibility are very important attributes. Any project doesn’t work according to the plan where the project manager needs some adjustments in it. The problems need to be resolved territory. To avoid this conflict the technical problems will only make them to build and get faster. Here the communications is very critical for the project manager who often bridges a gap in between the technical stack holders and stack holders who are non technical. Project manager needs to be friendly with everybody and he should not be friend for anyone if he needs to lead the project in correct path.

The decision is very important for deciding the time, cost and budget.

NON FINANCIAL INFORMATION: This includes man different things namely he defining of the task, sequence of the task, task scheduling, task planning resource for all the people who are well equipped, planning of the organisation, identification of the risk, planning of the quality, task staffing, task reporting, solving of task problems and finally the task change control.

FINANCIAL INFORMATION: projects generally have a financial factor where the limitation of cost estimates the budgets and shows how to have control over the cost. Project manager needs to interact with the organisation and also with outside agencies regarding the resources after that they will be the stack holders for the project. In this situation the manager has independence to manage and reports when they use which would be in their control throughout the project.” [5] [6]

STEPS RECOMMENDED IN SELECTING A PROJECT MANAGER IN FUTURE:

There are 10 steps for a project manager to follow for the future development of the project.

“INSPIRES A SHARED VISION: A project leader will be effective when he has a vision of what he doing and the ability to over come the problems. The change is been able to draw the boundaries. A leader needs to have lifts up that gives the reason for the vision and also the spirit to change. The leader’s visionary enables the people feel very real stake in their project. The people empower the experience vision that explores the vision which means that their jobs are part of future vision in the organisation.

GOOD COMMUNICATOR: The people who have the ability for communicating in all levels namely the second most important skill are for the project managers and also the team members. The leader needs to have the clear communication regarding the goals, performances, responsibilities and have more expectations with feed backs. There is a great value deal which places openness directly. The project leader is linked with the large organisation. The leader needs to have the ability of effective use of persuasion when it is necessary for ensuring the team success of the project. The effective communication of the project leader will support the team individual by achieving and also creating the guidelines that results for achieving the career with advancements of the team members.

INTEGRITY: The project leader needs to remember some important things for setting the team. The leadership will be good but the demands need to be committed and the demo of the ethical practises needs to be there. The ethical behaviour of these type pf standards is well rewarded by the project leaders based on their responsibility and practice. The leadership needs to be motivated by serving the self interest of the team. The integrity of the leadership represents a set of values which has less values to share, and the behaviour need to be consistent with all the values that is dedicated honestly with team members. The leader need to be like a walks to the talk which brings the trust in process earns.

ENTHUSIASM: All the leaders should have a plain and simple character but should not have a negative thought which brings the public down. We need the leaders to be enthusiastic and needs a attitude that makes us to step into a invigorate journey by that we needs to feel very lively. We usually follow the people who have a attitude of doing but not like the giving 200 useless reasons that doesn’t work. The leaders need to be enthusiastic for their commitment towards the goals that they optimise. Leader ship is something which emerges and also expresses the confidence of their commitment towards the project and also for others who wants to share their optimistic area of expectations. This enthusiasm is very much contagious and also needs to have a effective leaders who know this very well.

EMPATHY: Empathy is a word which is similar to the word sympathy. These two looks like similar but sympathy is a word according to the subject principle that absorbs other feelings and is protected into that object which has less concern towards the reality and also the validity of that special object. Empathy is another word that exists when a object is separated by the individual that entitles others feelings and also emotions.

COMPETENCE: The project leader needs to have a technical ability in the core area of technology business. Project management has a continues recognition in the field itself which will be chosen based on the ability of the successful lead rather on technical as per the past. It is having the track record to win the way which is known as competent. The skills needed for the leadership is to have the ability for challenge, inspiring capability, model to encourage leaders for seeing a capable leader.

ABILITY TO DELEGATE TASKS: the relationship between the project leader and the team needs to be essential. By using the actions we can demonstrate the trust for checking and having control on the work to delegate and allow people to participate. All the individuals who cannot able to trust the other people often fail like leaders and remain like small managers who will end up their work by themselves. According to project management always a good leader will be little bit lazy and being interested in some perspectives.

COOL UNDER PRESSURE: In this world all the projects are delivered according to time, budget overcoming all the major obstacles or problems. Now one is living in the perfect world which doesn’t have problems. A leader needs to have a hard attitude that needs to handle all these problems. When they face a event which is stressful and considered to be interesting will feel to influence and the outcomes looks like an opportunity. Out of all these uncertainty the change in chaos will rise up the leaders to articulate the image of future that pulls the project to close.

TEAM-BUILDING SKILLS: It is defined as the person who is strong provides the team to hold together for the general purpose that is a right work. For the progress of the team the group needs strangers who have single unit of cohesiveness for the leader who understands the process that is required for transformation. Every one needs to know exactly the style of leadership during every stage throughout the developing team. Here the leader needs to understand about the team workers styles and should know how to maintain and be a capital throughout the time and handles the problem.

PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS: The leadership should be effective and needs to know how to share the problem and handle the responsibilities in the team that usually expect from the project leaders who have skill of excellent way to solving the problem by themselves. They have fresh and creative type of response that is heard now as opportunities which are not much concerned by others performances.” [1][2][3]

ADVICE GIVEN TO C.E.O:

Every CEO need to follow some steps for the successful project.

There needs to be a continuous gradual improvement in the project. The CEO will be happy rarely because among them there needs to be a better performance.

There needs to be a obsession for lifelong learning that is read constantly by attending few seminars in groups and join that which inspires and also educate.

The strategically ability is to think and perform the plans effectively which focus on both long and short term strategy that is executed and also keeps the company moving in better direction.

The ability and desire is to be true towards the servant leader. This helps the team members to work for better tools, to improve the technology, the work need to be efficient with good clearer goals. In return the employees have the resource to view the employee success.

CONCLUSION:

Based on the current case study the project management is not completely successful due to the fewer funds from the government and the Good Programmers need to show their ability to serve 87 sites for all the systems with all the techniques that gives better performance for the XY Department.

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